Max Lucado Daily: YOUR GOD-INTENDED DESIGN - January 16, 2024
Be careful – in a desire to be great, one might cease being any good.
Not every teacher is equipped to be a principal. Not every carpenter has the skill to head a crew. Not every musician should conduct an orchestra. A promotion might promote a person right out of their sweet spot. For the love of more, a person might lose their purpose. You know, greed makes a poor job counselor.
Examine your gifts; know your strengths. Romans 12:3 says, “Have a sane estimate of your capabilities.” Proverbs 15:16 says, “It is better to have little with fear for the LORD than to have great treasure with turmoil.” So don’t let the itch for things or the ear for applause derail you from your God-intended design!
Isaiah 53
Who believes what we’ve heard and seen?
Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?
2–6 The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
on him, on him.
7–9 He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn’t say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he’d never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn’t true.
10 Still, it’s what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him.
11–12 Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many “righteous ones,”
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Today's Scripture
1 Corinthians 10:1–11
Remember our history, friends, and be warned. All our ancestors were led by the providential Cloud and taken miraculously through the Sea. They went through the waters, in a baptism like ours, as Moses led them from enslaving death to salvation life. They all ate and drank identical food and drink, meals provided daily by God. They drank from the Rock, God’s fountain for them that stayed with them wherever they were. And the Rock was Christ. But just experiencing God’s wonder and grace didn’t seem to mean much—most of them were defeated by temptation during the hard times in the desert, and God was not pleased.
6–10 The same thing could happen to us. We must be on guard so that we never get caught up in wanting our own way as they did. And we must not turn our religion into a circus as they did—“First the people partied, then they threw a dance.” We must not be sexually promiscuous—they paid for that, remember, with 23,000 deaths in one day! We must never try to get Christ to serve us instead of us serving him; they tried it, and God launched an epidemic of poisonous snakes. We must be careful not to stir up discontent; discontent destroyed them.
11–12 These are all warning markers—danger!—in our history books, written down so that we don’t repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were.
Insight
It’s appropriate that in writing to the Corinthians Paul would talk about the mistakes of Israel’s past being recorded “as warnings for us” (1 Corinthians 10:11). Why? Because the first fourteen chapters of this letter are also corrective—addressing problems within the life of the church at Corinth. From personality cults to lawsuits to immoral relationships to problems in marriages to abuse of liberty in Christ—the problems in Corinth ran deep. Therefore, examples of spiritual failure from Israel’s past provided warnings to a church very much in need of correction. In this case, perhaps the key is 1 Corinthians 10:8: “We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.” Given the depths of the problems at Corinth, the call to learn from the mistakes of others is valuable wisdom. By: Bill Crowder
Learning from Mistakes
These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us. 1 Corinthians 10:11
To help avoid future financial mistakes, such as those in 1929 and 2008 that brought down the world’s economy, the Library of Mistakes was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland. It features a collection of more than two thousand books that can help educate the next generation of economists. And it serves as a perfect example of how, according to the library’s curators, “smart people keep doing stupid things.” The curators believe that the only way to build a strong economy is to learn from prior mistakes.
Paul reminded the Corinthians that one way to avoid yielding to temptation and to have a strong spiritual life is to learn from the mistakes of God’s people in the past. So to make sure they wouldn’t become overconfident with their spiritual privilege, the apostle used ancient Israel’s failures as an example from which to gain wisdom. The Israelites engaged in idolatry, chose to “commit sexual immorality,” grumbled about the plans and purposes of God, and rebelled against His leaders. Due to their sin, they experienced His discipline (1 Corinthians 10:7–10). Paul presented these historical “examples” from Scripture to help believers in Jesus avoid repeating Israel’s mistakes (v. 11).
As God helps us, let’s learn from our mistakes and those made by others so that we might gain a heart of obedience for Him. By: Marvin Williams
Reflect & Pray
What warning should we recall when tempted to sin? How can we learn from our mistakes as well as the mistakes of others?
Dear God, please help me learn from failures so that I might be more obedient to You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
The Voice of the Nature of God
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" —Isaiah 6:8
When we talk about the call of God, we often forget the most important thing, namely, the nature of Him who calls. There are many things calling each of us today. Some of these calls will be answered, and others will not even be heard. The call is the expression of the nature of the One who calls, and we can only recognize the call if that same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God’s nature, not ours. God providentially weaves the threads of His call through our lives, and only we can distinguish them. It is the threading of God’s voice directly to us over a certain concern, and it is useless to seek another person’s opinion of it. Our dealings over the call of God should be kept exclusively between ourselves and Him.
The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God. But when God brings me into the right relationship with Himself, I will be in the same condition Isaiah was. Isaiah was so attuned to God, because of the great crisis he had just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul. The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the private profound communion we have with Him.… We have to pitch our tents where we shall always have quiet times with God, however noisy our times with the world may be. My Utmost for His Highest, January 6, 736 R
Bible in a Year: Genesis 39-40; Matthew 11
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Waking Up to Good News - #9657
So I'm sleeping all night, but something very interesting happens. There are people all over the world making news! The world's different from the time I close my eyes till the time I wake up, and I want to know what's happened during the night. I think a lot of people do. That's probably one of the first things some of us do is make sure we check in with one of the news channels, or check our phone, and maybe check what's on the Internet. I used to have a newspaper that arrived early in the morning, (in the good old days) and at that point I could just go out and get that and check out the headlines! Of course, I liked it better then and I still like it better now, even if it's on my phone, when it's good news, which isn't nearly often enough.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Waking Up to Good News."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Psalm 143:8. Listen to this: "Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love. For I have put my trust in You. Show me the way I should go. For to You I lift up my soul." God's inviting us here to check out the news from heaven every new morning. If you do, you will notice that the headline is always the same - God's Love Is Unfailing. God still loves you very, very much.
Basically, David is saying, "That's all I need to know about this day. This day may be filled with stress, and pressure, and danger, and challenges. But all I need to know is that I'm covered again. I am covered by the unfailing love of my Heavenly Father." Why? "Well, I've put all my eggs in one basket. I have put my trust in You, Lord." See, it means hanging everything on the protection and the provision of a God whose love for me is uninterrupted and unloseable. That is security! And He will show me the way I should go for this particular day. That's the way to have a day where you have peace no matter what; joy no matter what.
We've got a lot of days that aren't like that though. The problem is that I think we choose early in the day to focus on other headlines instead of God's banner headlines. Instead of focusing on God's unfailing love, we fill our heart with a headline like this: The money is failing! My strength is failing! My health is failing! My loved ones are failing! My dream is failing! The church is failing me! In fact, every earth thing, every earth person will fail you sometimes.
Many mornings you will wake up to a headline about something or someone who has failed you. But God's Word offers you a headline that never changes; the unsinkable anchor to this particular turbulent day. His unfailing love is still unfailing. The Old Testament prophet promises, "Every new day He does not fail." God, again this morning, whatever's happened still loves you very, very much. You are covered by that love. You are blessed if you're one of those rare people who are always calm at the center like the eye of a hurricane.
None of us knows what news will break in our life on any given day. That's why I love the security of Hebrews 6:19, that says, speaking of Jesus, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." One love that will never leave. One unmovable relationship. One unloseable security. And it all begins with a trip to the cross where Jesus spent His blood and His love to pay for the sin that separated you and me from God.
How wonderful it is to wake up in the morning and go, "I know He loves me. I've opened my life to that love that began on that cross." By the way, have you done that? If there's never been a day you have, make this your day to say, "Jesus, I'm Yours." Do you want to know how and make sure you have? Go to our websiteANewStory.com?
Every morning, your emotions, your attitudes to the headlines from heaven. They overrule every other headline. The morning news is always this: God Loves Me Today!